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Sep 03, 2023

To Make a Difference, You Have to Be Different

To Make a Difference, You Have to Be Different

Passage: Daniel 1:2-21

Preacher: Dr. Steve Brown

Series: The Book of Daniel

Detail:

 

KALA: What are some characteristics of people who make a difference?

Prayer: Rom. 12:1-2

  • Father, I want to worship this morning by offering ___________________
  • May Your Word transform my heart so that ____________________
  • Through the power of Your Spirit, will You reveal Your will about ______

 

MESSAGE:

Colossians 3:1-2

Romans 12:2

Daniel 1:1-21

1. I can embrace the plan to be different. 1:1-3

A. God overrules sins of people according to His plan. 1:1-2

B. God often scatters people according to His plan. 1:3

Hab. 1:5-6

Micah 4:10

Jeremiah 25:11-12

Jeremiah 29:10

Isa. 42:6

Isa. 49:6

Ex. 19:6

Dan. 12:3

1 Pet. 2:9

Matt. 5:14-16

Acts 17:26

Jer. 29:7

2. I can endure the pressures to be different. 1:3-7

“A worldview is a comprehensive view of life through which we think, understand, and judge, and which determines our approach to life and meaning.”


“A worldview is that basic set of assumptions that gives meaning to one’s thoughts. A worldview is the set of assumptions that someone has about the way things are, about what things are, about why things are.” -Russ Bush, Professor of Philosophy, Southeastern Seminary

 

“A worldview is a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic make-up of our world.” -James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalouge, expanded ed, (Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity, 1988), 17.

 

“One’s worldview is perhaps best reflected by one’s answers to the ‘ultimate questions of life’: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What’s it all about? Is there a god? How can I live and die happily? What are good and evil? [What would I die for?] -James H. Olthius, “On Worldviews,” Christians Scholar’s Review 15, no.2 (1985): 153-164.

A. I may face isolation contexts. 1:3
B. I may face indoctrination concepts. 1:4
C. I may face ingestation constants. 1:5
D. I may face identification confusion. 1:6-7

Daniel: “God, El, is my judge” → Belteshazzar: “Baal protects the king”

Hananiah: “God, Yahweh, has been, is, gracious” → Shadrach: “Under the Command of Aku (the moon god)” or “I am fearful of a god”

Mishael: “There is none like God” → Meshach: “There is none like Aku (the moon god)”  or “I am despised contemptible, humbled before my god”

Azariah: “God, Yahweh, has helped me” → Abed-Nego: “The Servant of Nebo (the Babylonian god of wisdom)”

John 13:34

John 12:35

1) Have frequent experiences with Christ.

John 8:12 

2) Have frequent encounters with the Word of God.

Psa. 119:105

Heb. 4:12

Rom. 12:1-2

3) Have frequent engagements with the people of God.

Matt. 5:14